Clinton campaign head made $200,000 with subprime lender

[LTR]

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign manager, Maggie Williams, earned about $200,000 on the board of a Long Island subprime lender that charged prepayment penalties - a practice that Clinton, a critic of the subprime industry, now seeks to eliminate.

Williams, who took over the reins of Clinton's campaign in early February, served as a director on the board of the Woodbury-based Delta Financial Corp. from April 2000 until the firm declared bankruptcy in December, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records.

She was recruited by former New York City Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch, a Delta consultant. Her assignments were to create a new code of "best practices," and to improve the company's crisis management operation in the wake of state and federal predatory lending probes that resulted in a $12 million payout to borrowers.

Her hiring coincided with stepped-up Delta outreach efforts in minority communities, where the company made a large number of its loans, an initiative that included parties for homeless children and mortgage seminars in Brooklyn and Queens.

more:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-ushill305631627mar30,0,3896712,print.story

[bigtree]

1. sounds like she was brought in as a trouble shooter

to set things right after abuses were uncovered. I guess you think the company shouldn't have made an effort to set these loans right. It's not easy for the folks in these communities to obtain the capital they need to start businesses because of low collateral. There was still a need to make things right in the community this financial institution had affected with the mismanagement of their loans. That's the job that Williams carried out as a fair arbiter in the wake of the revelation of the bad loans.

[LTR]

2. Nearly eight years as a director is a long time

Particularly through the height of the housing boom and the current crisis.